Planets

Our planets, the earth, has eight neighbours. Together they make a family of nine planets which travel around the sun. We call the sun, and all the spaces bodies that whirl around it, the solar. The sun and the planets, the solar system inclused moons, mini-planets called asteroids, and comets.

The word planet comes from the Greek word planets, which means wanderer. Comets are like huge dirty snowballs. Most stay out on the edge of the solar system, but a few travel close to the sun. These comets griw gas and dust tails, millons of kilometres long, when the sun's heat starts to melt them.

Our planets is the only solar system with water and living things on it. It is third planet from the sun, and it gets just the right amount of heat and light to keep us alive.It gets dark at night because the earth is spinning as it orbits the sun. As part of the earth spin away from the sun, they move into darkness. It takes a whole day and a night for the earth to spin round once.

Venus isnt't the closet planet to the sun, but it is the hottest. The temperature there can reach up tp 500c- that's about eight times hotter than it gets in the Sahara Desert, the hottest place in earth. Although Mercury
(right) is the closet to the sun, Venus is covered by clouds of gas which act like a blanket, keeping the sun's heat.

Mars is often called the red planet. The ground there is coverd in dusty red soils, which gets the swept up by the wind to make to pink clouds. The rocks on mars have lots of iron in them, and irons goes red when it rusts. A better name for mars might be the rusty planets.

Jupiter is so huge that all the other planets could fit inside it. The beautiful patterns on its face are made by swirling clouda of gas, stirred up by powerful wind storms.Jupiter was named by the Ancident Romans,after the king of thier god.